Dreams of Incarnate Stone
by Melamire
Summary: A drow story, mostly rated for violence. Aylena Elosthan is a young drow priestess who truly loves the Spider Queen. I'm trying to write her as amoral rather than immoral.
1. Prologue

A/N: First attempt at drow fiction. (Thank you, Shrike and Liriel, for reviewing my poem!) The character, Aylena, is drow and female and a Lloth-worshipper, but I'm trying to make her amoral instead of immoral. We'll see just how well this works ;).  
  
I'm making up the names of the drow characters in the story. I hope they do sound as if they could be drow names. If you see room for improvement here (or anywhere else), let me know.  
  
Disclaimer: Wizards of the Coast/TSR own the drow and the Underdark. No profit is being made from this story, and no attempt to claim the dark elves is being made.  
  
  
Dreams of Incarnate Stone  
  
Prologue  
  
Aylena started to turn around. "I have the filfaer moss, Kelydda. How much should I use--?"  
  
*Bang.*  
  
Aylena felt her feet leave the floor, felt her back smack against the stone wall, and then felt herself slide down the wall. After that, she didn't really feel anything except the throbbing, searing pain in the side of her face. She rolled over and looked up at her sister, who was saying something Aylena couldn't hear. The explosion had deafened her.  
  
*Temporarily,* Aylena thought as she struggled back to her feet, and Kelydda took a step towards her. *Oh Lady Lloth, let it be temporary!*  
  
"What has happened?"  
  
*Funny,* Aylena thought as she fell into a kneeling position. Even through the ringing echoes in her ears, she could still hear her Matron's voice perfectly.  
  
"Nothing, Mother," said Kelydda. *Very well,* thought Aylena, keeping her eyes down. *So it was temporary. Thank you, Lady of Spiders*. "Aylena was careless with the potion ingredients. Show her, little sister."  
  
Aylena rose slowly to her feet, and let her eyes meet the matron's with care. Whether Matron Zirrin believed her sister's inane ramblings or not was truly of little matter. The most important thing was what the Matron decided was important. If she decided Aylena was marked as too ugly by the explosion to be of any more use, she would accept Kelydda's explanation and punish her youngest daughter, whether or not she truly believed that the explosion was Aylena's fault.  
  
It helped to know those things. It helped so much that, even facing a beating or death, Aylena was calm. Her Matron could do what she liked, as long as Aylena knew the reason, knew *why.*  
  
Matron Zirrin stood in front of her and looked at her youngest daughter for a long moment. Aylena returned her stare. The room was full of light, since she and Kelydda had needed to read scrolls, and so the Matron's eyes showed as green, pools of calm verdant light in the smooth black skin of her face. Aylena found them a lot harder to read than the scrolls.  
  
"Kelydda," said the Matron after a moment. "Fetch the mirror."  
  
Aylena didn't know what that meant. Of course, her sister went gleefully enough to fetch the mirror, but then Kelydda was stupid. She didn't understand all the currents that could be moving behind the Matron's calm words. Aylena had realized long ago that their mother kept Kelydda at her side because of all the unwitting havoc that Kelydda could cause if she was let out in the city.  
  
Kelydda brought back the bronze mirror that had hung in a corner of the room for all the decade and a half since Aylena's birth. It wouldn't hang there much longer, Aylena thought, since a long corner of it was cracked. The Matron spent a moment looking at the crack with the same coldness she had spent looking at her youngest daughter's injury, and then she held the mirror out so that Aylena could see herself in it.  
  
Aylena used all the control she had learned to put up with Kelydda to keep herself from recoiling.  
  
Seamed cracks ran down the left side of her face, barely missing her eye to coil into a messy pattern on her cheek. The pattern must be the source of the throbbing, Aylena thought. She could see teeth and gums through the ruin of the left side of her mouth. She moved her tongue, and clearly saw it move in the mirror. The burns and cracks spread all down the side of her throat, stopping an inch or so above her shoulder. Unless she wore a mask of some kind, there was no way to cover it, and Aylena knew already that even the most advanced drow healing potions couldn't quite convince it not to scar.  
  
She was ugly.  
  
Ugly in a city where deformed children of any kind were given to the Lady of Spiders.  
  
Aylena looked up, fully expecting to see her death in her Matron's green eyes, the twins of her own.  
  
Zirrin stood looking at her. Aylena could still see nothing in her expression.  
  
Abruptly Zirrin said, "Kelydda, leave us."  
  
"But, Mother-"  
  
"Kelydda." Zirrin's voice was so quiet, and so deadly, that roaring orcs would have fallen silent to hear it. "That is twice within five minutes that you have called me Mother. The first two times, I might let pass, simply because they reminded me of your inherent stupidity-never a good thing to forget. But if you call me Mother again, then I will shred you with my nails and feed you to the driders while yet your heart beats."  
  
There was silence. Aylena wished she could glance over the Matron's shoulder to enjoy the sight of Kelydda blanching with fear, but now was not the time to look away from Zirrin's face if she wanted to live. Aylena didn't know how she knew that, and that was frustrating, but sometimes the whys had to be silenced and the brisk facts of the matter dealt with.  
  
"Yes, Matron," said Kelydda. The door opened and closed.  
  
Zirrin made a casual gesture. All the candles in the room went out. Aylena took a moment to let her eyes adjust to infravision, and then met the red glow of her mother's eyes.  
  
"Truth comes out in the darkness," murmured Zirrin. "What happened?"  
  
Aylena didn't waste time wondering why the Matron wanted to hear her side of things. "I turned around with the filfaer moss in my hands," she said, hearing her words slur with the wound to her mouth, knowing she would have to get used to it. "The explosion hit. I slammed into the wall."  
  
"What were you making?"  
  
"Tsoss d'ssinssrigg."  
  
Zirrin nodded, her face still cool, without any trace of the heat of rage. "And is that what you smell in this room?"  
  
Aylena closed her eyes and fell within herself, turning all her attention to her sense of smell. It still took her effort to do that. Of course, since she was not yet a full priestess of Lloth, it took her effort to do a lot of things.  
  
"No," she said quietly, opening her eyes again.  
  
"What do you smell?"  
  
"Tsoss d'nizzre'."  
  
"And why would your sister want to make a potion to call lightning, instead of one to induce lust?"  
  
"It was an assassination attempt."  
  
"It was," said the Matron. "A very clumsy one. And were I some Matrons, it would cost me two of my daughters. I would sacrifice you, because of your deformity, and I would have to discipline Kelydda firmly, for stupidity. She would resent me and attack me soon after. No, I will not discipline either one of you. I will let the consequences sort themselves out instead."  
  
"Matron?"  
  
"You are not stupid, Aylena," said Zirrin, and now her face did glow, a little. "You know what I mean. Think about it."  
  
"You will leave my face like this," said Aylena.  
  
"Yes," said Zirrin. "You should have been able to tell the difference between the potions. You should have realized that your sister would resent you."  
  
"And Kelydda?"  
  
Zirrin leaned forward. "Tell me what her punishment will be."  
  
Aylena closed her own eyes and thought. She couldn't think with those scarlet eyes staring into her own. Not glaring; as Zirrin said, she was not some Matrons. But in some ways, that difference meant that Aylena couldn't rely on some of the techniques she wanted to use.  
  
She had to think.  
  
"She botched an assassination attempt," she said slowly. "Usually, the punishment for that is execution."  
  
Zirrin said nothing.  
  
"And you're not executing her."  
  
Silence.  
  
Aylena gasped, and opened her eyes to gaze at her mother-and in that moment, Zirrin did feel like mother rather than Matron.  
  
"Thank you," she said softly.  
  
Zirrin turned and left the room.  
  
Aylena leaned back against the wall, ignoring the throbbing pain in her face, and smiled. Zirrin had given her a gift. Kelydda's death was hers.  
  
Her sister might not pay for this for long years. But when she did, she would pay-and pay-and pay.  
  
"Thank you, Lady of Spiders," Aylena whispered.  
  
  
  
Translation of the potion names (both are made up, as far as I know)  
  
tsoss d'ssinssrigg= kiss of lust.  
  
tsoss d'nizzre'= kiss of lightning. 


	2. Through the Gates

A/N: Thank you for the review, Liriel. No, it's the first chapter of a (hopefully) much longer story.  
  
Aylena goes outside the city in this one, and is a little more active.   
  
I'm getting the drow words from the Drow Dictionary at drow.virtualave.net. It's the most comprehensive one I've found.  
  
Disclaimer in Prologue.  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Through the Gates  
  
"Mayoe l'quarval-sharess orn naut elhear." (Maybe the goddess won't notice).  
  
-Famous last words.  
  
Aylena glanced back at the house and sniffed. Zenoria got more boring each time she visited. She actually seemed to think that her male twins were deserving of attention, and she had hinted that she didn't even plan to put them through page prince training.  
  
*It's a good thing that my sister has the favor of Lloth, or she would die the moment she hinted at that,* thought Aylena. At the very least, Aylena would have been happy to kill Zenoria herself. It was something of a puzzle to her why Matron Zirrin would simply watch the disappointing daughter she had borne, now the Matron of a minor house herself, and nod at the twins, even if she wouldn't smile at them.  
  
It drove Aylena mad not to know the whys.  
  
But she had given up on this one, at least for now, and was walking briskly towards one of the lesser exits from the city. Matron Zirrin wanted her daughter to stay alive, and Lloth seemed content to remain favoring her. The most Aylena could do was wait, and watch, and be ready to slay her sister the second that Zenoria fell out of favor.  
  
Aylena leaped up on a stalagmite and crouched, letting the candle in her hand go out and her eyes shift fully into the infrared spectrum. Glittering colors of red and purple sprang into being ahead of her. Aylena smiled a little. Only the purple was faerie fire.  
  
Her feet made no sound as she crept closer, but then, the guardians of this exit weren't really the kind that could hear. It was the mind they focused on, and so Aylena concentrated on blanking her thoughts completely, sinking into the dreamy contemplation that she used before the eight-legged idol in the center of their chapel to the Lady. She felt searching minds wheel above her like cloakers on the hunt. She ignored them.  
  
*They cannot sense you,* the words repeated in her mind, over and over. They weren't really audible on the surface of her thoughts-that would have been calling for notice-but formed an underpinning that meant Aylena focused on the words and transformed them into belief, and from there into action. This was the one lesson that her elder sister Sielza, the heir of the Elosthan House, had ever taught her, and she had done it over and over until Aylena could get it right in her sleep. *They cannot notice you. Not will not, but cannot. You fool them. You are not here. You are faerie fire. You are less than faerie fire. You are shaped to escape their notice. You do not exist.*  
  
She stepped past the last brush of a hunting mind, and into the thick tangle of spiderwebs that filled the tunnel entrance. The red glow warned her of a trapped animal somewhere near. She could get caught herself.  
  
But only if she behaved with such utter stupidity that she *deserved* to get caught.  
  
Aylena lifted her arm and brushed it against the nearest strand of the web. At once, a quiver traveled off into the darkness, and then she saw the shape of the great spider crawling towards her, hurrying along the silken strands without catching in a one.  
  
Aylena bowed her head in reverence as the spider approached, deliberately letting her long white hair almost brush against the web, and murmured, "All honor to the Goddess."  
  
The spider paused. Aylena waited. She could hear every slight shift of its body, with senses sharpened to the height that had allowed her to survive one assassination attempt after another. It was deciding whether to fling a cord of silk around her body or not.  
  
Aylena gasped as a loop of thread settled around her neck, and leaned her head back. Heat flared through her veins, and her body glowed. She would now be visible to anyone watching the entrance with eyes, but she didn't care. If they thought she was about to be eaten by the spider, they'd hardly stop the Lady's chosen, and if Lloth chose to grant her passage this time as well, there would be nothing they could do.  
  
Sweet feminine laughter drifted through the passage, and then the loop of silk was gone from her neck. Aylena reached up and stepped into the web, walking along the strands as easily as a spider. Magic thrummed in her veins. The Lady's favor covered her like a second *piwafwi.* And the spider followed as close as an honor guard as Aylena crossed through the web.  
  
The webs were as thick as the stalks in a mushroom grove, and to someone who didn't walk with Lloth's favor, as confusing. It was no wonder that this exit out of the main cave of Ozluethyl was so little-used. But Aylena saw with the eyes of the spider, saw the pattern that underlay it all, and danced through with laughter on her lips and the Lady's name singing in her throat like a second heartbeat.  
  
She stepped off the last strand of the web, into the wild Underdark, and turned back, bowing to the spider. It moved its mandibles at her and scurried back into the thicket of its web, to await another intruder.  
  
Aylena turned and shook out her hair, leaving it flowing out of her cloak as she paced into the darkness. It might reveal her the more easily, but then again, if Lloth didn't want her found, it might not. Aylena liked the challenge of walking through the tunnels and depending on the Lady's fey favor far more than her weapons or her magic.  
  
Besides, it was the best way to increase that favor.  
  
The wide tunnel narrowed inside of a dozen drow strides, sweeping around a corner and dipping dramatically, so that the next cavern beyond had an entrance barely wide enough to crawl through. Aylena dropped to her belly and slithered through, not standing on the other side but turning to a narrow ledge almost flush with the wall.  
  
It would have looked like nothing special to anyone else, but when Aylena said, "*Arlyurlen d'lil quarval-sharess,*" glittering swords of blue faerie fire sprang to life, crossing from ledge to floor and back again and back again until they formed a brilliant triangle. Aylena sped through, stopping with a soft laugh in another place entirely. The triangle had already snapped shut behind her. It remained open for only three seconds at a time, which meant that it could easily cut her in half if she waited too long.  
  
Aylena loved that.  
  
She flung herself down beside the pool in this little cavern, eyes half-closed, basking in the glow of the power that radiated here. Her very own *faerzress.* No one else knew about it, largely because Aylena had arranged quiet accidents for the few people who had found out. They hadn't really insisted on sharing; they had just known about it. Aylena sometimes even regretted their deaths, since that meant there was no one to appreciate what she was doing here.  
  
Aylena rolled over and looked at the statue in the corner of the cavern. Its proportions were still imperfect. She had one leg and the left half of the body the way she wanted them, but she had chipped and flaked at the other three legs for days without avail. They would have to go, she decided with some regret. She would have to do the right half of the statue over again.  
  
She rose and walked over to it. Blue faerie fire sprang up at her approach, and Aylena felt the breath catch in her throat as for a moment the light shone in the stone spider's eyes as if it lived. But, of course, it didn't, and the little flames died, and Aylena resigned herself to disappointment. It would take a lot more than that to make the spider live, even in a faerzress. She had known that, but still, the sense of being close was so keen in her that she writhed with every little semblance of spirit.  
  
She laid a hand on the spider's head. It half-emerged from the stone, head twisted up and to the side as if it were listening for a call. Only one leg perfect, and the other three would have to go. Aylena whispered, "*Alu tarthe.*"  
  
Nothing happened. Aylena groaned as she realized she had slurred the words again. She spoke them carefully, enunciating the consonants so distinctly that it seemed to her as if the stone legs fell away from the body especially sharply, just to please her.  
  
She closed her eyes, sank into the pulse of the power around her, and held up her hands, still speaking with careful distinctiveness. "*Killianen d'chath.*"  
  
When she opened her eyes, the swords of faerie fire were at work, cutting the right side of the body. Aylena lay on the bank of the pool and watched them do it, waving a finger now and then when she wanted a slice in a different place. The swords whirled to obey her, singing a high and clear note that Aylena didn't think anyone else would have been able to hear.  
  
When she had to dismiss the enchantment at last, Aylena was sweat-soaked and panting. Luckily, she had had the foresight to bring something to eat with her this time. With careful hands she fumbled open her pouch and pulled out a handful of filfaer moss. It was easy on her mutilated mouth, and sweet enough. Besides, she liked to eat it, so that she would never forget she had indeed made a vow of vengeance against Kelydda eighteen years ago.  
  
She munched a few times, then fell asleep halfway through.  
  
*****  
  
It was a dream. Aylena knew it was a dream. She looked into the pool before her, and saw her face as she remembered it from before Kelydda's first assassination attempt, smooth and dark-skinned, tongue and teeth and gums invisible. She laughed.  
  
"Is this what you want?"  
  
The mocking, melodious voice came from behind her. Aylena whirled around and knelt, without even looking up. She had heard the voice too many times, whispering in her ear at the height of a ceremony, or laughing when she passed a spider's web.  
  
"Lady," she said.  
  
The laughter came again, and then a slender hand reached out and cupped her chin, bringing her face up. Aylena met eyes of fire, set in a face of such piercing beauty that it made her brain ache and her own suddenly regained looks feel petty and false.  
  
"Is that what you want?" said Lloth's mocking voice.  
  
"My lady?"  
  
"Your looks back? Such a modest ambition. Such a store placed on beauty, when you might do other things."  
  
Aylena gasped. It was one thing to know that her matron trod on blasphemy by leaving her alive, but this was something altogether new. "Lady-beauty is one of your sacred principles."  
  
"What would those be worth if I could not change them as I saw fit?" Rage pealed through Lloth's voice, and Aylena dropped her eyes again.  
  
"Nothing, my lady."  
  
"Choose," said Lloth. "You can have your face back, if you like. You can wake up, and be as you were before."  
  
"And the price?" Nothing was without its price.  
  
"You must give up your other dream, your dream of bringing life to the spider."  
  
Aylena bowed her head. She couldn't question the terms of the bargain. This was the Lady of Chaos, and one didn't do that.  
  
"And if I bring life to the spider?"  
  
"You will remain hideous for the rest of your days, whether you do or not," said Lloth. "This is the last chance I will offer."  
  
Aylena shook her head.  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"I choose to bring life to the spider."  
  
Lloth laughed at her, and the dream dissolved.  
  
*****  
  
Aylena blinked tears from her eyes, and doused them with a handful of pool water, turning to gaze at the spider statue. It was frustratingly hard to make, and she didn't know that she would ever be able to accomplish what she sought.  
  
She could have made the statue move and stir with an enchantment. That was easy enough. But that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted a spider that would live of its own will, of the Lady's will, filled with the spirit of one of the Goddess's children.   
  
She wanted to bring life to the stone.  
  
She ran a hand over the statue's nearest leg, and turned to take the portal back to the tunnel outside Ozluethyl. She couldn't accomplish any more at the moment.  
  
But that didn't mean that she could never accomplish anything. Aylena had determination in her like a second pulse. She would finish the spider and see it walking about with a life of its own, as surely as she would kill Kelydda someday.  
  
What death should she threaten Kelydda with today?  
  
That pleasant speculation accompanied her all the way back to the city, where things promptly went all to the Abyss.  
  
  
Drow Words:  
  
arlyurlen d'lil quarval-sharess= breasts of the goddess. Yes, it's blasphemous. That's the point.  
faerzress= magical strength, a place where the magical radiations of the Underdark are strong.  
alu tarthe= go away.  
killianen d'chath= swords of fire. 


	3. Sielza

A/N: A little more action in this one. I've tried to keep Sielza out of the Generic Evil Drow Priestess camp, but I'm afraid that she fell a little more into it than Aylena does. We'll see.  
  
Disclaimer in Prologue.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Sielza  
  
"Kyorl tuth rathrea lueth alust." (Watch both behind and in front).  
  
-Good advice.  
  
"How did you get through the webs?"  
  
Aylena hadn't known that she could still feel this level of fear. Of course, she had felt something like it in front of the goddess, but the Lady was, after all, a goddess. The voice of a mortal drow shouldn't be able to make her skin chill and her feet itch to run the other way.  
  
At least, Aylena didn't think so.  
  
"Sister," she said, bowing her head as Sielza stepped out of the webs guarding the tunnel. She must have been using magic of some kind to conceal her body heat, which now blazed forth in a scarlet as rich as her eyes.  
  
"Sister," said Sielza, but with that bite in her words that still chilled Aylena. "I asked you a question. I expect an answer to that question." Her hand fell to her belt, where the snakes of her whip hissed and twisted around themselves in anticipation.  
  
Aylena eyed them as calmly as she could. She had been beaten before, but perhaps the snakes wouldn't bite as deeply into the skin of a trainee priestess in Lloth's favor.  
  
One of the vipers hissed at her, and Aylena shuddered. As with everything about the Lady of Spiders, one could never be sure.  
  
"I was-" Aylena began, and only then realized that Sielza hadn't asked her where she had been. There was every likelihood that her sister, a high priestess of Lloth with much on her mind, simply didn't care about such things. But getting through the webs was another thing, something that was supposed to be beyond a female as young as Aylena. Aylena let her eyes fall to the floor again. "I am in Lloth's favor," she murmured. "The *quarval-sharess* parted the webs and let me through."  
  
"You lie."  
  
Aylena squirmed, moving one foot in a circle on the floor and leaving a telltale pattern of heat behind. Sielza would make a fine matron of Elosthan House someday. Even just a simple reminder that she could read Aylena's mind sounded like a threat.  
  
"I depended on the Queen's favor," Aylena said. "That much is true."  
  
"How did you get past the *kyorlen phor l'shar*?"  
  
That truly made Aylena look up in surprise. "Using the discipline that you taught me," she said. "Sister." And again she dropped her eyes, so hot was Sielza's face beginning to flare.  
  
"You are a disgrace to the House."  
  
Aylena braced herself for the tide of words, relaxing a little. Sielza had given her this particular speech before, and Aylena had grown used to accepting it and getting to the other side, where Sielza would be sure that she had had her say and Aylena was properly chastened. Of course, Aylena didn't really allow anyone but the Lady or the Matron to chastise her, but Sielza didn't need to know that.  
  
"You should never have been allowed to live. With a face like that, everyone will think that Elosthan has lost the favor of Lloth." Sielza came closer, her steps light and graceful, her perfect face alive with the heat. If a predator came wandering down this tunnel now, it would see both of them from dozens of feet away. "The Matron has her reasons, of course-"  
  
Aylena did her best to hide a smile. Even in a private speech attacking her sister, Sielza did not quite dare to criticize Matron Zirrin.  
  
"-but those reasons are not good enough."  
  
Aylena couldn't keep her jaw from dropping open, and the sight seemed to disgust Sielza.  
  
"Close your mouth," she said. "And put your tongue as far in your throat as possible. It disgusts me to see it hanging there, like a worm."  
  
The words had magical force, and Aylena shut her mouth so firmly that she would have bitten through her tongue, had not Sielza also commanded her to move it.  
  
"Never should have been allowed to live," Sielza went on, almost purring as she neared Aylena and drew the whip from her belt. The snakes all but coiled themselves around each other now, hissing so loudly that Aylena could hear them better than her heartbeat in her ears. "If the Matron were not soft and lost to the ways of Lloth at heart, then she would have killed you. As it is, I must do so myself."  
  
Once again, shock overpowered Aylena's fear. For Sielza to be so openly critical of the Matron, she must have decided to move, and take over Elosthan House.  
  
Fear quickly returned, of course. It seemed that Sielza had decided to take care of Aylena before she attacked the Matron.  
  
"Hold still."  
  
Aylena's body stiffened, and Sielza stood in front of her, smiling very slightly. Aylena remembered that she had never seen her eldest sister smile except when she was on the verge of killing someone.  
  
"Queen of Spiders," said Sielza softly. "You see what I do here, and I ask that you accept and approve of this sacrifice." She raised the whip. Aylena found that she couldn't take her eyes off it. The whip wouldn't kill her quickly, even given the serpents' formidable poison.  
  
There was a rustling and clacking sound from behind Sielza.  
  
Aylena's eyes were not frozen in their sockets, and she was able to look over Sielza's shoulder and see what was coming. She almost laughed, or at least tried, though she couldn't make any sound. Sielza turned, with a frown, to see what she was staring at.  
  
The spider had come out of its web, and now crouched on the last strand, watching Sielza with piercing, brilliant eyes.  
  
Sielza smiled and bowed to the great creature, then turned back to her sacrifice. The spider remained where it was, watching, and Aylena doubted for a moment. She had thought the spider had come to save her, but the Spider Queen could as easily have sent it as a sign that she approved of the sacrifice Sielza was making.  
  
Or perhaps...  
  
Aylena berated herself for a fool. She had forgotten the cardinal lesson of the Spider Queen. Lloth was a lover of caprice and whim, and only the strongest would hunt her webs and not be thrown down.  
  
Aylena had only to be strong.  
  
She drew in a breath and fell within herself, watching as the whip rose with only her physical eyes, seeking out her determination and the core of power that her training was designed to allow her to tap. She firmed her will, and as the whip descended, she whispered one word.  
  
"*Lassrin.*"  
  
The spell holding her shattered, and Aylena rolled and dodged to the side with elven grace. The whip came down where she had been standing, and Aylena ran past Sielza and jumped into the middle of the web, ignoring the spider as if it had been a male.  
  
The strands stuck to her arms. Aylena ignored the fear that she might be trapped here forever and reached up, clutching the cord above her head.  
  
It bent, and the other strands unstuck. In seconds, Aylena was climbing through the web, hearing Sielza coming up fast behind her-not because her sister was screaming or crying out for vengeance, but simply because the silence was too deadly to mean anything else.  
  
Aylena rolled out on the far side of the web and spent a moment gaining her bearings.  
  
Too long.  
  
Talons raked at her mind, and Aylena cried out and put her hands to her temples. The *kyorlen phor l'shar*, who guarded this entrance, were pouncing about her unguarded thoughts, taking the chance to read every secret. They would know who she was, and then they would turn her inside out for daring to break the laws of the city and use this entrance when she was underage.  
  
Aylena crouched, and again fell within herself, breaking free of the panic and anger that wanted to hold her as easily as she had broken free of the strands of the spiderweb. They whipped past her, and she ignored them. She was nothing. She was less than nothing. She was faerie fire.  
  
The mind searching hers paused, then snarled like a beast denied its prey. In moments, its presence was gone.  
  
Aylena opened her eyes, seeing a female drow walk towards her and then pause as if listening to something. She was slender and well-made, but her eyes didn't seem to focus well. She tilted her head to the side, eyes radiating no red glow.  
  
Aylena knew she didn't need physical eyes. She had the eyes of the mind, and those were quite deadly enough.  
  
The psionicist stood still and listened and looked for a few more moments. Then she turned to the side as Sielza came out of the web, but appeared to recognize her, bowing to her as if she were a high priestess.  
  
*Well, she is,* Aylena thought, in spite of her need to remain hidden.  
  
At once, Sielza turned, her thin lips lifting in a smile. "There you are, little sister," she said, and began to walk forward, the snake-whip lifted again. Aylena could feel her gathering her will, calling to the goddess, and doing other things that would render Aylena dead in short order.  
  
Aylena flung herself into motion, ignoring the sudden start and pursuit of the *kyorlen phor l'shar*. She had to get to her Matron.  
  
Sielza came after her, the slight shuffle of her feet all the warning that Aylena needed.  
She took a deep breath and dropped her hand to the pouch at her waist. She didn't want to use the weapon in it. If nothing else, it would reveal that she had it-a deadly thing that was reserved for the use of high priestesses.  
  
Well, she could reveal that she had it, or Sielza would kill her.  
  
Given the choice, Aylena knew what she had to do.  
  
She tore open the pouch and turned, closing her own eyes as she cast the clay pellet to the ground in Sielza's path. Sielza screamed in rage and pain as light exploded in her sight, and her infravision was destroyed. Aylena heard a crash that might have been her sister staggering into a stalagmite.  
  
She turned and raced into the darkness, angling her steps towards Elosthan House.  
  
The Matron had to be warned.  
  
Drow Words:  
  
kyorlen phor l'shar= watchers over the mind, a group of psionic wild talents defending this tunnel.  
  
lassrin= break. 


	4. Unintentions and Questions of Loyalty

A/N: More and more action. Wow. The story's moving quickly. I hope everyone is enjoying it as much as I am ;).  
  
Disclaimer in Prologue. The drow are still not mine.  
  
Chapter 3  
  
Unintentions and Questions of Loyalty  
  
"L'alurl khalessev abbil zhah dosstan." (The best trusted friend is yourself).  
  
-Drow Proverb.  
  
Aylena pounded towards the front gate of Elosthan House. The statues of displacer beasts on either side, the House guardians, stuttered into motion as she passed and then resumed their stillness, recognizing her for a member of the nobility.  
  
Aylena passed through the gates and looked around. No one was in the courtyard at the moment. Above her, the balcony was also deserted, and she clasped the House symbol that hung about her neck and called on the power to levitate.  
  
"Back so soon, sister?"  
  
Even given everything that had happened to her today, Aylena had no choice but to turn around and gape at that. The voice was male, and the sheer insolence in it angered her beyond words. Her anger only increased when she saw her brother Renorth-well, the Matron had borne him; thank the Lady of Spiders they had different fathers-walking casually towards her. He had been hiding in the heat-shadow of one of the statues, she thought. That very act, that he had dared to spy upon a noble female, was infuriating.  
  
"Elderboy," she said. "You should be careful how you speak to a priestess of Lloth."  
  
"Not yet a full one."  
  
Aylena drew breath to yell, and then saw the sword on his left hip coming out of its sheath with a snap so fast she would be lucky to miss being skewered. Once again, she had to fling herself to the ground and roll away. And Renorth came after her in seconds, long strides more fleet and graceful than Sielza's. There were advantages to warrior training; Aylena had to admit that.  
  
She rolled back under the balcony and spoke a quick prayer to the Goddess as she pulled a small clump of web from her belt pouch.  
  
Renorth was almost upon her when she cast the spell. At once, a floating web filled the air, settling upon him and dragging him to the ground.  
  
Renorth lashed out in a rage with two of the three swords he carried, but even their fine edges couldn't cut one of Lloth's webs. Aylena stepped forward, smiling as she looked at him.  
  
"Your life is forfeit, Elderboy," she said. "To think that you would dare attack a female-"  
  
She stopped.  
  
Renorth's insolence was indeed out of place. He had never dared speak like that to her before, even when she was a child and just beginning to learn the ways of Lloth and the House. He mumbled, and kept his eyes on the floor, and went somewhere else when the Matron and her elder sisters were feeling in a particularly vicious mood, if he could. He held the position of Weapons Master, but the Matron treated him as little better than a common soldier, and Aylena had followed her lead.  
  
If he had struck back at her...  
  
He must have been confident, very confident, that the Matron could do nothing.  
  
Aylena didn't stay to finish Renorth off, tempting though it was. She called on her magic instead and rose into the air, sweeping around the balcony and settling on the edge like a hunting bat.  
  
"Matron?" she asked, trying her best not to sound hurried or out of breath. Matron Zirrin hated for any of her children to sound so, claiming that it brought disgrace upon Elosthan.  
  
Ominous silence answered her.   
  
Aylena stepped forward, and pushed beyond the glittering curtain of beads that hung there into the room beyond, trusting to Lloth to protect her.  
  
Nothing happened, and for a moment she breathed more easily. Then she saw who sat on the elaborately carved chair the Matron usually occupied. At once, her chest tightened, and her hand firmed on her belt pouch.  
  
"Matron Zenoria?" she said. "I didn't expect to find you here."  
  
Her sister smiled tightly at her. Zenoria was the Matron of House Zelossa, a minor family she had founded, but not particularly favored in any other way. Lloth had seen fit to grant her an ungainly face, a huge clumsy body that was almost six feet tall, and long hair that was too thick and always in need of washing. And sons, Aylena reminded herself. If one looked upon their faces and forms and blessings, they were almost equal, Aylena's disfigured face being made up for by the favor of Lloth.  
  
"Sister," said Zenoria. "We hoped that you might return. Therranz and Kisrin were getting impatient to play with you."  
  
Aylena held back a shudder. The male twins' idea of play was to hold something down and torture it until they died. Aylena saw absolutely nothing wrong with cruelty in its place, but that place was in the hands of a high priestess, not the hands of boys just barely three years old.  
  
"Where is Matron Zirrin?" she asked, changing it just in time from "the Matron." Zenoria would fly into a rage if Aylena didn't remember her status. "I have an urgent message for her."  
  
Zenoria shook her head. "I am afraid that she was suddenly taken sick."  
  
"Taken sick?" Aylena asked blankly. She couldn't imagine any calamity that could befall the Matron while she walked in the full throes of Lloth's favor, which she had always done despite doing strange things like keeping a disfigured daughter alive.  
  
"Yes, taken sick." Zenoria rose to her feet, hair not swirling behind her in the usual graceful movement of a drow priestess but falling limply down her back. She saw Aylena noticing and made an irritated gesture with one hand. "But she left me a message for you."  
  
"What was that?" Aylena wished that she could read Zenoria's mind, but that art was reserved for high priestesses alone, and Lloth hadn't yet seen fit to grant it to Aylena. She would have to wait and see how this dangerous game played out.  
  
Zenoria smiled and held up a hand. Aylena didn't recognize the cold light beginning to glow around her fingers, black in the infrared spectrum, but she didn't need to.  
  
It was a spell.  
  
Aylena dodged again-*this seems to be my day for it,* she noted to herself-and ran towards the door. It flew open at her call, then almost slammed shut again as Zenoria shouted the opposite command. Aylena shouted for it to open again, and got through while Zenoria was so mad that she could hardly speak.  
  
Now.  
  
Where would the Matron be?  
  
Aylena didn't even pause before she ran along the carved halls in the direction of the room she had never been allowed to visit, or even go near. Spiders chattered at her from the walls and paced her, but didn't stop her. Aylena didn't know why. They should.  
  
Shortly she rounded the final corner and saw the door to Matron Zirrin's private chambers shining before her, guarded by jade spiders and statues of deadlier creatures. Aylena was not concerned; she could fight her way through them if need be. What concerned her were the strands of some spell she had never seen before threading the corridor, all of them glowing with a soft, bright blue light that was deeper and richer than faerie fire.  
  
Aylena had no idea what would happen if she touched them. Something suitably nasty, no doubt.  
  
Just then, from beyond the barriers, Matron Zirrin cried out in pain.  
  
That did it. Aylena stepped forward and through the glowing blue barriers, intent on reaching her Matron.  
  
The lines of light seemed to sink within her. Aylena shivered as she briefly felt a sensation like passing through the water of Calinthzyl, the extremely cold small lake a few miles from Ozluethyl's borders. She wished she could wrap her arms around herself, but she seemed to have lost all control of her body, or even sensation of it. She felt the cold, and she felt a vast eye watching her and examining every corner of her being, but nothing else.  
  
Then the coldness and the sense of being watched was gone. Aylena stumbled forward, beyond the lines of blue light. She put her hands out in front of her so she wouldn't crash into the first jade spider.  
  
There was no jade spider.  
  
Aylena turned and looked behind her. The blue barriers were back in place, and if she squinted enough she could make out a distinctly different hall beyond them, one that bristled with weapons and wards. Here, though, there were none, and the hall was an expanse of smooth carved stone straight to the Matron's door. Matron Zirrin had protected her private quarters all these years with an elaborate illusion.  
  
Her heart in her throat with admiration of the risk, Aylena turned and laid a hand on the door.  
  
It shimmered and wavered at her coming, and then Aylena was in a chamber so vast and so draped with luxuries that she could have spent hours looking and still not seen them all. She was concerned with the dark elven woman who lay in the center of the enormous bed, though. Matron Zirrin was stiff, as if in death, and the glow of her body was dangerously cool.  
  
Aylena came forward and knelt beside the bed, reaching out to caress her mother's hand.  
  
At once, Zirrin's fingers closed on her own, and she turned her head. Eyes that held more heat than all her dying body possessed focused on Aylena, glowing. "Aylena," she said.  
  
"Matron." Aylena bowed her head.  
  
"What are you doing here? How did you get past the *vharren d'zin'olhyrran?*"  
  
Aylena shivered at the name of the powerful enchantment. "I stepped into them, and felt as if an eye were looking at me. And then I passed through, Matron," she said simply.  
  
For a moment, there was a smile in those red eyes. "They found the loyalty in you," said Zirrin. "You are truly loyal to me." A spasm seized her then, and she turned her head away, grimacing. "Cover your eyes," she whispered.   
  
Aylena had just barely obeyed when a flash of heat nearly blinded her, despite the warning. It had come from her mother's body. It was so great that Aylena was surprised it did not set the hangings around the bed afire. When she looked again, timidly, even more heat had faded from Zirrin's body.  
  
"What is it?" whispered Aylena. She did not doubt that it was poison or magic, but she had never in all her studies encountered something that could do this. The sound of Matron Zirrin's voice, low and exhausted, didn't help.  
  
"I do not know, Daughter. It seems to consume the heat from me in great bursts. When I get cold enough, I will die. Or perhaps the shock of the fires will kill me." Her voice was cool towards the end, as if she would be interested in witnessing her own death.  
  
"What can be done?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
Aylena lowered her head. "I will pray to the Spider Queen."  
  
"Lloth helps or not, as she chooses."  
  
"I know," said Aylena quietly, and then prepared herself to fall into her prayers.  
  
A hand closed on her hair, jerking her head up. Zirrin's eyes focused on her, searching. "Why?" she asked, in a whisper that Aylena thought would have been a shout, could she have summoned the strength. "Why would you risk so much for me? Why not join your sisters and brother?"  
  
"Because I am loyal to you."  
  
The Matron gave her a little shake. "I know that, or the *vharren d'zin'olhyrran* would not have let you through. But why are you throwing your lot in with me?"  
  
Aylena found herself smiling, a bitter smile she had not known she possessed. She felt her tongue move in her mouth in that odd way, and knew her mother's eyes followed it. "My brother and sisters despise me," she said. "For my disfigurement. And I would not survive long, if Zenoria were to become mistress of Elosthan House."  
  
"Is that all?"  
  
"You are my Matron," said Aylena, and then fell into her prayers rather than wait for another interruption, as much an act of defiance against the Matron as she had ever dared.  
  
Drow words:  
  
vharren d'zin'olhyrran= wards of loyalty, a spell that insures only those truly loyal to the caster can pass. 


	5. Dreams of Destiny

A/N: Aylena visits the Abyss in this one. How fun.  
  
Disclaimer in prologue. Drow still not mine.  
  
Chapter 4  
  
Dreams of Destiny  
  
"Elamshin!" (Goddess-touched destiny!)  
  
-Battle-cry of the kyorlen phor l'shar.  
  
Aylena found herself falling through mist. She struggled, kicking against the strands of an invisible web surrounding her, and found herself standing on a layer of mud under a shifting cloak of fog.  
  
Her eyes were open-or were they shut? Aylena experimented with opening and closing them a few times. Nothing seemed to make a difference. Whether they were open or shut, she still saw the same gray-black landscape before her.  
  
Aylena drew in a breath. That little difference could start all the fear in the world inside her head, did she let it.  
  
So the important thing was not to let it.  
  
She started forward, picking her boots free of the sucking mud and ignoring the clinging pall of the mist. She was in some part of the Abyss, she knew that much, and she had only to find the goddess. She knew that Lloth often set such tests for her priestesses. It was only a matter of passing it.  
  
Aylena had to admit that she hadn't expected to pass such a test when she called on the goddess to help her mother, but she did her best to put her clamoring questions out of her mind. She could ask Matron Zirrin such questions, and the Matron would often explain. But then, the Matron was very indulgent of her youngest daughter. Even as she would have liked to know more, Aylena knew that.  
  
And Lloth was not the Matron.  
  
Something moved off to her left. Aylena paused, her hand resting on her belt pouch, squinting into the mist. It parted, and a creature like a half-melted stick of wax came towards her. A long mouth opened within it, and the almost elven voice of the yochlol spoke from the gap.  
  
"Why have you come?"  
  
Aylena's heart pounded and sang in her ears. She had never faced one of the goddess's handmaidens before. Still, that was no reason to panic. She did her best to keep her voice calm and measured, concentrating especially hard on not slurring her words due to her disfigurement. "My mother, Matron Zirrin Elosthan, lies near death. I have come to ask the goddess's aid in healing her."  
  
"And who are you?"  
  
Aylena hid her surprise as best she could. She would have assumed that the yochlol knew who she was. Of course, perhaps the handmaiden did, and this was a test that Lloth wanted to make her undergo for some obscure reason.  
  
"Aylena Elosthan. Her youngest daughter."  
  
The handmaiden paused, and Aylena almost thought she could feel its mind reaching out, touching and tasting the goddess's perhaps. Aylena trembled as she thought of that. To be so thoroughly in Lloth's presence was something to be envied and longed for, something that she would give much to have when she died.  
  
"You are in the highest favor of Lloth," said the yochlol at last. "And your Matron floats near death. I will give you help, if you can pass the test." Its half-melted eyes once again focused on her, and it said, "There is a price for the aid."  
  
"I know it," Aylena answered, remembering the legends she had heard. Sometimes the priestess who came asking for help had to kill someone else dear to her. Sometimes she had to kill herself. Sometimes she had to give up a treasured possession. Aylena wondered which of those prices she would have to pay.  
  
"You must answer a riddle."  
  
Aylena breathed a little more easily, and her confidence came swelling up in her. True, her training wasn't completed, but she had dared to race ahead and do many things that only high priestesses could normally do. She had studied many more things than a normal trainee priestess, as well. "I will answer the riddle," she said.  
  
"To whom do you owe the more loyalty?" asked the yochlol. "The Matron, or Lloth?"  
  
Aylena's breath froze in her throat. The yochlol stood looking at her, waiting for the answer. Aylena closed her eyes, and felt the sweat on her brow freeze as well. This level of the Abyss was colder than it seemed.  
  
She knew what the required answer should be. Every priestess's highest allegiance was to the Spider Queen, and if Lloth commanded her to turn on her own Matron, then the priestess would have no choice. But surely Lloth could look within her heart, and see that Aylena was loyal to the Matron as well. And Aylena couldn't weigh her own loyalties in the way that the gaze of supernatural creatures like the yochlol could. She couldn't know for certain if she was really more loyal to the Matron or the Spider Queen. And even if she gave the right answer, Lloth might declare against Aylena in her caprice. That was the kind of goddess she was.  
  
Then Aylena paused, her heart slowing.  
  
The yochlol hadn't asked to whom she had the greater loyalty, had she? She had asked to whom Aylena owed the greater loyalty.  
  
Aylena's head rose, and her eyes fixed on the yochlol. She knew she was smiling, but she couldn't help it. "The Spider Queen," she said.  
  
The yochlol barely waited before extending her great tentacles and draping them over Aylena's shoulders. Aylena barely breathed as she stared into the melted eyes. After all, the yochlol might decide to tear her apart if she thought that Aylena wasn't high enough in the favor of Lloth. Or Lloth might be displeased or piqued with Aylena's cleverness and have given her permission to eat Aylena.  
  
But instead, the handmaiden said, "The goddess has said that you are correct, and I will return no later than the moment you began to pray, to help the Matron."  
  
Aylena's head dropped, and she let out a breath in spite of herself.  
  
"But first, Lloth would speak to you," added the yochlol, and with no more warning than that, her form transformed into that of a great spider, with the head of a beautiful drow woman. Two of her legs rested on Aylena's shoulders, and her face smiled with cruel triumph.  
  
Aylena collapsed to her knees in the mud. She couldn't help it, any more than she had been able to resist smiling when she gave the answer to the riddle. The sense of the divine presence was much more overwhelming here, in the Spider Queen's own realm, then it was in a dream.  
  
"All praise to Lloth," she murmured, hoping that the goddess wouldn't choose to simply kill her, perhaps decapitating her with a sweep of one wicked leg.  
  
"Are you only saying that because you know it's expected, or because you mean it?" asked the goddess, her voice gentle with mockery, beautiful and cruel as falling stone.  
  
"I am saying it to keep myself safe," said Aylena, her head rising again. She felt as though she were one of the duergar she had seen captive at a fair not long ago, strings strung through their bodies to make them dance at the slightest hand movement of their drow captors. "I love you, my goddess, but I do not trust you."  
  
Lloth's laughter came again, rich and sweet, and in spite of herself Aylena gloried in it.  
  
"Do you know why I have let you live?" Lloth asked, when her laughter died. "Despite your disfigurement, despite your recklessness, despite your little blasphemies?"  
  
"No," whispered Aylena. In truth, she had always thought that she amused the goddess, and that Lloth would kill her when she tired of Aylena. But to actually learn the reason...Aylena found that she was trembling. Her body flushed with heat, and there was wetness on her thighs.  
  
"You have a great destiny, a great elamshin," said Lloth. "And when your Matron bore you, I felt that destiny, and chose to look into the future. It was clouded. But I was able to feel that you would strike a devastating blow to a drow goddess."  
  
"But, my lady-"  
  
"I chose to take the risk," Lloth interrupted. "I will suck you dry like a fly in a web if you oppose me, and I will do the same thing if you no longer amuse me. Or do you really think that I will not do it, simply because you amuse me?"  
  
"No," said Aylena.  
  
Lloth laughed again, the sound softer than the rubbing of her legs or the squelch of the mud as something heavy, perhaps another handmaiden, passed close to them. "Stay alive, little fly," she said, dropping her legs from Aylena's shoulders. "And go back to your Matron. She will be grateful for the loyalty that you have shown her this day." She paused, scarlet eyes staring into Aylena's. "But never forget where you true loyalty lies."  
  
"No," said Aylena, and fought the urge to lower her face into the mud. She had the strange feeling that that wouldn't really amuse Lloth. "I will never forget. But will the Matron know of this?"  
  
"It is my choice whether to reveal this conversation to her, or not," said Lloth easily.  
  
"Of course." Aylena cast her eyes down. "I did not mean to offend, my Queen."  
  
"You nearly did," said Lloth, and then waved a leg easily. The yochlol who had spoken with Aylena appeared again. "Here is your helper. Take her back with you, and tell your Matron that she must suffer the touch of the tentacles."  
  
"I will."  
  
Lloth nodded to her, and then turned and stepped through the darkness and the mist and the mud, vanishing in seconds.  
  
Aylena shook for a moment, then turned and gripped one of the yochlol's tentacles, falling through the mists of her mind into the Underdark again.  
  
*****  
  
"Matron."  
  
Matron Zirrin turned her head, the scarlet in her eyes flaring as she saw the yochlol. "Aylena, what have you done?" she whispered.  
  
"Matron, you must suffer the handmaiden to put her tentacles upon you."  
  
Zirrin flinched before she nodded, and Aylena wondered at it. Was her Matron that squeamish, or was there some other reason that she didn't want the yochlol touching her?  
  
Whatever the truth of it, she waited as the handmaiden draped her tentacles over her body, and shuddered only a little at the feel of the skin. Aylena watched as another burst of heat swelled in her Matron's body, and guessed the yochlol would do something about it when the heat was at its height. Curious beyond measure, Aylena leaned forward and put her hand on the yochlol's shoulder, or at least on the handmaiden's skin, just above the tentacle's beginning.  
  
Exultation swelled within her. She sensed the approach of the heat, as though it were a long distance away and swooping closer through tunnels. She could feel the yochlol calling on the power of the goddess, and then Lloth's will was over everything, a pulsing dark presence.  
  
The dark presence met the heat.  
  
The heat dissipated.  
  
Aylena cried out as the mingled powers washed and danced through her blood. It was a very quick battle, as she had not doubted that it would be. After all, no mere drow-made poison could stand up to the will of Lloth, especially not channeled through one of Lloth's highest servants. But the sheer sensation of it was something all over again. For just a moment, Aylena soared on wings like a cave-bat, swam through dark waters with the ease of an aboleth, and sang with the stone like a pech. She was free, ultimately free, and everything was open to her.  
  
Almost everything. There was a disturbing, silvery presence just above her, under the burning pressure that Aylena knew must be the sun of the old stories. And this presence was determined to keep her from spreading further. Aylena found herself hating the silvery one, and she would have cast herself like an arrow at it if she could.  
  
But she was needed back in the Matron's bedchamber, and with some reluctance Aylena opened her eyes and sat up. The yochlol was gone, and her hand rested on the Matron's belly. Quickly, Aylena withdrew her hand and bowed her head.  
  
"You brought a yochlol to heal me."  
  
Aylena shuddered a little at the sound of Matron Zirrin's voice. If the Matron wasn't back at full strength quite yet, she was approaching it rapidly. "Yes, Matron."  
  
"Another time you will tell me how you accomplished the deed." Zirrin had already moved on. "Who is in the conspiracy against me?"  
  
"Sielza, Renorth, and Matron Zenoria would all have killed me," said Aylena.  
  
"Kelydda?"  
  
"I did not see her."  
  
The Matron nodded. "We must assume that she is with them until we learn otherwise," she said, and Aylena was a little surprised to see that she was smiling widely. She caught Aylena's eye, and inclined her head.   
  
"They think they have won," she said softly, voices rumbling as sharply as falling stalactites. "They do not know the half of it."  
  
Aylena shivered in delightful anticipation. "You will make them driders?" she asked softly, naming the most appropriate punishment she could think of for defying a Matron.  
  
Zirrin's eyes flared. In that moment, she looked as full as deadly as Lloth. If she had been in the Abyss with Aylena, looking as she did then, Aylena would not have found the riddle so easy to answer.  
  
"They will wish that they are driders when I am done with them." 


End file.
